First time buyer, conveyancing help.

YorkieG

Hi everyone,

Although I never posted any questions here during my house hunting process, this forum has been a great help for me, and I owe every single post I read a lot of gratitude for the knowledge and help they provided, and same will apply to anyone who takes the time to offer their input/opinion.

I’m with one of the online services and the customer service was (And still is) great when it comes to prompt responses and actual assistance, the conveyancer/solicitor I was allocated however leaves a lot to be desired.

When I was hunting for a mortgage deal, I tried to change the parameters to see if I can get a better deal, tweaking mortgage term and deposit amount, this resulted in 3 or 4 different scenarios and I picked one.

My mortgage application was approved within 48 hours, great, except, I was presented with a mortgage offer (Call it Reference# AB12C/01:23) for a longer overall term than I agreed to with the broker, I highlighted that to my case worker and they rectified it in less than an hour, (call this lender offer Reference# AB12C/04:56). They both had an identical Mortgage Roll Number.

When my solicitors finally started dealing with my case, they sent me a few documents, 2 of which were titled ‘Mortgage Report’ and ‘Mortgage Deed’.

The Mortgage report referenced AB13C/22:55 offer, breaking down and explaining the basic parameters, the wrong overall term, the wrong monthly payments and the wrong total cost for the initial mortgage term. I highlighted that to the solicitors and never heard back, so I got my case handler to chase them up, within 30 minutes I was promised a rectification ‘soon’.

3 days later I had to chase them again, finally got the updated report, referring to same reference number, correct overall term, but amount to be paid during initial term remained the same (I will be paying more monthly, so the overall cost should be higher).

There was no ‘Updated’ mortgage deed.

It seems to me like the solicitor simply edited the document instead of referring back to the lender’s correct mortgage offer that I agreed to.

I’m not very good at explaining, sorry if I got anyone confused!

My questions are:

1- Is the reference number on the mortgage offer internal to the broker and the Mortgage Roll Number is the one that has significance with the lender? I am a details freak and don’t want to be creating a problem if one does not exist. If the reference number is internal to the broker, I don’t care if it matches or not.

2- The Mortgage Report does not require a signature, so I’m assuming it’s just an illustration to my obligation as a borrower, or is this a legally binding document that solicitor would act in my behalf and use it to set the mortgage terms with the lender?

3- The mortgage deed requires a witnessed physical signature, the solicitors never ‘updated’ this, should I expect an updated deed with a different Title Number and a new HM Land Registry reference number?

Thank you for your help.

user1977

Why do you think the title number needs changed? That’s the number which the land registry allocated to the property, it has nothing to do with your mortgage account number. It will be the same deed no matter what the details of your mortgage are.

YorkieG

user1977 said:

Why do you think the title number needs changed? That’s the number which the land registry allocated to the property, it has nothing to do with your mortgage account number. It will be the same deed no matter what the details of your mortgage are.

Hi there,

That’s the thing, I don’t know how it works, I’m asking instead of making assumptions and/or making a big deal out of nothing.

The reason I’m asking is that from my understanding, the Mortgage Deed is the document outlining the terms and conditions of my shared ownership of the property with the lender until the mortgage is repaid in full and the property being mine alone. If those conditions are based on the wrong mortgage term and monthly payments, then it would be invalid (In my head at least).

Whether that is rectified by simply editing the terms in the Mortgage Report and not changing anything on the deed or not was my third question.

propertyrental

YorkieG said:

Hi everyone,

I’m with one of the online services and the customer service was (And still is) great when it comes to prompt responses and actual assistance, the conveyancer/solicitor I was allocated however leaves a lot to be desired.

.

I'm guessing you are using a cheap conveyancing warehouse. Great value as long as everything runs smoothly, automated updates and admin staff ticking boxes.

But as you've found, the actual solicitor will be responsible for a huge number of clients and 'overseeing' a huge number of admin staff, so when issues arise they'll be dealt with (slowly) in turn and in a rushed manner.

user1977

YorkieG said:

user1977 said:

Why do you think the title number needs changed? That’s the number which the land registry allocated to the property, it has nothing to do with your mortgage account number. It will be the same deed no matter what the details of your mortgage are.

That’s the thing, I don’t know how it works, I’m asking instead of making assumptions and/or making a big deal out of nothing.

The reason I’m asking is that from my understanding, the Mortgage Deed is the document outlining the terms and conditions of my shared ownership of the property with the lender until the mortgage is repaid in full and the property being mine alone. If those conditions are based on the wrong mortgage term and monthly payments, then it would be invalid (In my head at least).

Whether that is rectified by simply editing the terms in the Mortgage Report and not changing anything on the deed or not was my third question.

The mortgage deed simply grants a security over the property to your lender. It has nothing to do with the details of your mortgage product.

YorkieG

propertyrental said:

I'm guessing you are using a cheap conveyancing warehouse. Great value as long as everything runs smoothly, automated updates and admin staff ticking boxes.

But as you've found, the actual solicitor will be responsible for a huge number of clients and 'overseeing' a huge number of admin staff, so when issues arise they'll be dealt with (slowly) in turn and in a rushed manner.

I completely agree on the criticism, but it’s not so cheap believe it or not.

The truth is however, around 8 of my colleagues have used ‘local’ solicitors, 7 of which were very unhappy with the service they received or the time it took for their solicitors to answer their queries or those of the opposite part of their chain. The eights believes he was just lucky because his case was straightforward.

I made my decision to go with that kind of package due to my current circumstances (Work long hours, going through divorce, no one available to help and needed the convenience of a single point of contact doing the chasing for me, which is actually working pretty well).

Would I use them again or recommend them? Probably for a remortgage, but not for the conveyancing.

YorkieG

user1977 said:

The mortgage deed simply grants a security over the property to your lender. It has nothing to do with the details of your mortgage product.

Got it, thank you for explaining.

I’m assuming this will remain the same even if I remortgage with a new lender at the end of my fixed term?

user1977

YorkieG said:

user1977 said:

The mortgage deed simply grants a security over the property to your lender. It has nothing to do with the details of your mortgage product.

I’m assuming this will remain the same even if I remortgage with a new lender at the end of my fixed term?

New lender means a new mortgage deed. A new mortgage deal with the same lender means (usually!) no change to the mortgage deed.

EssexHebridean

You will have been sent a copy of the title document to the property you are buying. Check that the details of the title number on the mortgage deed are the same as the title number on that title document (which is a copy of the register of title held by the Land Registry).  You should also check that the property address is correct, and that your name is correctly spelled. When you sign the document it needs to be witnessed by an independent adult witness  - they should not be related to you, a friend, work colleague or neighbour is often a good bet for this. 

As a general rule once a freehold property is given a title number it then keeps that number - although there are a few situations where that’s not the case, they’re relatively unusual. A leasehold property will get given a new title number if a lease extension is granted. 

YorkieG

user1977 said:

New lender means a new mortgage deed. A new mortgage deal with the same lender means (usually!) no change to the mortgage deed.

That makes sense. Thank you for explaining.

YorkieG

EssexHebridean said:

You will have been sent a copy of the title document to the property you are buying. Check that the details of the title number on the mortgage deed are the same as the title number on that title document (which is a copy of the register of title held by the Land Registry).  You should also check that the property address is correct, and that your name is correctly spelled. When you sign the document it needs to be witnessed by an independent adult witness  - they should not be related to you, a friend, work colleague or neighbour is often a good bet for this. 

As a general rule once a freehold property is given a title number it then keeps that number - although there are a few situations where that’s not the case, they’re relatively unusual. A leasehold property will get given a new title number if a lease extension is granted. 

Unfortunately, I’m not even at that stage where I get the title deed yet.

I would’ve gone through everything anyway with me being a details' freak, but the recent mix up with basic information that should be straightforward makes double checking, and even triple checking a must.

The document in question is now rectified, I was so consumed with the incorrect details that I completely missed the header of the document having the conveyancing company’s logo, so I don’t really think it’s THAT important as the documents I received from the lender are correct. Nonetheless, I feel a lot better now that everything matches up.

The property is a freehold and used to be a buy to let, the vendor’s solicitors are a lot more professional than mine, they sent everything, I had a few queries that my solicitor have forwarded alongside their own queries, hopefully getting to the title deed stage soon.

Thank you for your help.